【VOA常速】每日听读 |古巴一豪华酒店发生爆炸，至少27人死亡

This is VOA News. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton.

Rescuers in the Cuban capital are desperately searching for victims of an explosion that killed at least 27 people at one of Havana's most luxurious hotels.

A natural gas leak at the hotel Saratoga was the apparent cause of Friday's blast. The 19th century structure in the city's Old Havana neighborhood did not have any guests at the time. It was undergoing renovations ahead of a planned Tuesday reopening.

On Saturday evening, the chief of hospital services at Cuba's Ministry of Health raised the death toll to 27 with 81 people injured. The dead included four children and a pregnant woman.

Spain's President Pedro Sánchez said via Twitter that a Spanish tourist was among the dead and that another Spaniard was seriously injured.

Cuban authorities confirmed the tourist's death and said her partner was injured. They were not staying at the hotel. Cuba's tourism minister said a Cuban-American tourist was also killed.

Representatives of the company that owns the hotel said during a news conference Saturday that 51 workers had been inside the hotel at the time of the blast, as well as two people working on renovations. Of those, 11 were killed, 13 remained missing and six were hospitalized.

The Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, has won the largest number of seats in the Northern [Ireland] Ireland Assembly for the first time. With almost all the votes counted from Thursday's the election, Sinn Fein has secured 27 of the Assembly's 90 seats. The Democratic Unionist Party has 24.

The historic win means Sinn Fein is entitled to the post of first minister in Belfast. It's the first for a nationalist party since Northern Ireland was founded as a Protestant-majority state in 1921.

Sinn Fein seeks a united Ireland. It has long been linked to the Irish Republican Army.

This is VOA News.

Less immigrant [later in the] labor in the United States is contributing to price hikes across the board. AP correspondent Julie Walker reports.

First immigration tapered off during the Trump administration, then ground to a near complete halt at the height of COVID. By some estimates, the U.S. now has two million fewer immigrants than it would have if the pace had stayed the same. That's helped lead to a desperate scramble.

In Texas, Mike Helle's farm has replaced acres of greens with crops that can be harvested by machines while increasing pay for his workers almost all immigrants.

Al Flores had to hike the price of a brisket plate at his restaurant with the meatpacking plants' inability to fully staff production lines.

Labor issues are among several contributors to the U.S.'s highest inflation in 40 years.

I'm Julie Walker.

France's President Emmanuel Macron has been inaugurated for a second five-year term. AP correspondent Karen Chammas reports.

He then went to the gardens of the Élysée Palace and listened to 21 cannon shots being fired from the Invalides Plaza to mark the event in line with tradition.

Macron's second term will formally start on May 14.

I'm Karen Chammas.

The Airline Operators of Nigeria say (the) Nigerian Airlines will stop operation starting on Monday until further notice due to the high cost of jet fuel.

Domestic flights have been disrupted since March as some airlines started to cancel internal schedules while others delayed operations citing the scarcity of jet fuel.

And the death toll in Havana, Cuba is now up to 27 after a blast on Friday at Havana's hotel Saratoga.

Marissa Melton VOA New(s).

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